NYC September 27, 2025

Saturday, September 27, 2025

A really long and exhausting… but good..day — 22,000 steps! 9.3 miles.

We started out the morning with brunch at Rucola, a sweet neighborhood restaurant (Boerum Hill) where we wanted to have dinner. We had heard that if you come by in the morning you can get your name on the list for dinner and when you arrive you get put at the top of the list. Weird, but it works. So we decided to have brunch. Then we walked about 2 miles to pick up the rental car at Hertz near Grand Army Plaza. It was primarily an uphill walk …through parts of Park Slope, which was a bit tough and then the wait at Hertz was a bit more than we had planned, but eventually we got our car. Along the walk, we passed two guys (most likely from the Caribbean) who were sitting outside a shop. we chatted for a few minutes when one of the guys said: Wow– you are all the same height, and short! Then he said “one, two , three” pointing to each of us and repeated that he thought it was great that we were all the same size!

We drove just a few blocks to put the car into the parking lot at the Brooklyn Museum. We really didn’t want to get the car that early but the Hertz place closes at 1:00 on Saturdays, so this was the best plan as we would need the car later in the afternoon.

So we started at the Brooklyn Museum.

Strolled through the museum — no particular exhibit although there were some special nods to recent work in conjunction with the 200th anniversary; and ofcourse it’s always worth a revisit to The Dinner Party. I actually like the Brooklyn Museum–it’s a great scale and a very friendly place to view art. From there we strolled through Prospect Heights to have lunch at Gertrude’s–a neighborhood place that serves “Jew-ish” food. Definitely a step above the stuff I was raised with. We shared a latke plate that came with trout roe, creme fraiche, roasted apples, smoked trout and some other goodies; and what they called Hy’s Melt (smoked whitefish salad and melted swiss with tomato, capers, and dill on a sesame bagel). Food was great and we certainly were hungry.

From there we walked back toward the museum but headed to the Botanical Gardens where strolled a bit and took advantage of a few of the benches along the way.

Then we took the car and drove through Park Slope winding in and out of streets and avenues, including making a pit stop in front of the building where Mike lived in an apartment with his mother and brother for about 21 years… and driving through Webster Plad–a very small street which includes a row of very well preserved Queen Anne homes with column porches and wood frames from the 1860s. Then we parked the car (no easy task to find a spot) so that we could walk —yes more walking to get to those 21,000 steps– into Prospect Park to stroll under and through the renovated Endale Arch. But we waited until sunset to see the newly installed LED lights which looks really cool from pictures I’ve seen. We waited and waited and peole-watched as families strolled through the park and as many people packed up their picnic gear to head home at dusk with tons of gear (badminton paddles, tables, chairs, balls, and of course dogs)… but the sun set and no lights. As we started to leave we asked someone about the lights which are supposed to turn on automatically at sunset (6:44 pm tonight)–and his response was very NY: “Probably broken. It is NY!”

Felt really bad not to see the arch with the lighting.. but will either try to catch it on another day… or else next time. We then headed to dinner at Rucola which was now packed and buzzing. We shared a wonderful meal: branzino crudo, with pickled tomatoes, basil, olive oil; a citrus salad with oranges, meyer lemon, fennel, and pistachios; a pasta dish that had corn crema, shrimp, chili sauce; and Arctic char, cooked to perfection with fennel….and ended with a sour cherry pie — a fitting end to add whatever pounds we had lost with all that walking.

Back to the hotel and now I’m headed to bed. Stay tuned for more tomorrow.

Fern